Alka Yagnik Credit: Image via Alka Yagnik/Facebook
The ’90s represented a sea change for Bollywood music. While the ’70s and ’80s emphasized fizzy fusions of disco, pop and traditional Indian soundtrack sounds, the 1992 arrival of visionary composer-producer A.R. Rahman heralded a more sophisticated approach. Rahman definitely knew how to craft accessible hits, but he did so with sweeping, symphonic soundscapes that appropriately mirrored the melodrama onscreen. His work throughout the decade completely shifted the baseline for what made a quality Bollywood soundtrack, demanding songs be danceable, singable earworms (maybe sometimes with a weird rap break!), as well as compositionally sound and emotionally evocative. Rahman – and the composer-producers who followed in his wake – also introduced a whole new group of playback singers (the folks who actually sing the songs for the actors onscreen), and a trio of them – Udit Narayan, Kumar Sanu and the inimitable Alka Yagnik – will be performing ’90s hits by Rahman and others at this “throwback” performance.
